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Friday, 24 September 2010

The Crosstrainer

OK, so "crosstraining" appears quite a lot on my program and is pretty much always just cycling tbh. However, through a mixture of spending far too long on my bike the previous week and having to be at work at 8, I figured I'd head down to the college gym and use the cross trainer thing. You know, this:

To my surprise, despite having pretty much spent the last three years with a poster on it saying "Broken - Do not use" on it - IT WAS ACTUALLY IN FULL WORKING ORDER. This eliminated my original, premeditated excuse for just erging instead, so I felt obliged to use the damn thing. Curses.

So I started churning away. It seemed a little easy, so I took the tempo up a bit, and my feet promptly slipped out of the back, leaving me straddling the stupid machine while gripping on to the stupid move-y handles for dear life. I got back on, with only minimal swearing. Just teething problems with it, clearly. I am not a retard. I can completely operate this machine.

It happened again. FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

I resolved the problem by just whacking up the resistance and abandoning the arm bit. (That was just one step to far on the "coordination" front...)

It then occurred to me that I was turning into a middle aged woman (MAW). I mean, yoga? Using a CROSSTRAINER? Classic MAW activities. I'd soon have a son called Tarquin and be drinking Diet Coke in an office eating mini ryvitas for lunch! Crap!

Thankfully the crosstrainer is facing a mirror in Pembroke's gym, so I got a reality check. I've produced this for distinguishing me between your average MAW in Virgin Active and me:

Your average MAW while exercising

Me, at 0630 in the Pembroke gym

By "kick-ass trainers" I mean these.

I saw these across a crowded Sport's World store and it was love at first sight. Black, lime green and orange Asics? Seriously YES PLEASE. They have the great skill of clashing with every piece of kit I own (esp. the Cambridge blue and red CUW Blue Boat kit :->). They are the sort of trainers that go out tagging railway bridges and swearing at old ladies at bus stops in their down time, just for kicks.

I cannot explain why I spent half an hour on Paint drawing these.

So after watching myself attempting to use this stupid contraption for an hour I got off. I then had a really strong hit of post-exercise endorphins (not massive exhaustion - upsetting!), so put Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" on the mp3 player and danced around a bit (the gym was empty so what the hell....), making me late for work.* There was probably singing too.

*This actually happened.

The next day it was crosstraining again so I thought I'd do the same, remembering the excellent dancing incident. I lasted 5 mins of falling off and swearing before deciding to screw it and go for a run instead. I've come to the conclusion that the crosstrainer is just running for pussies anyway. So there.

Ooooo posters! (Now only £5)

Rowing: The Rules poster

How many minutes the last 300m of a 2K feels like:

These guys are awesome and you should check them out

About the Author

A mathematician and r̶o̶w̶e̶r̶ cyclist.
Very susceptible to bouts of rage about anything from slow-walking pedestrians to yoga. Interests outside of cycling, maths, sci fi and feminism include swearing at things and cooking large bowls of p̶a̶s̶t̶a̶ broccoli.